by Howard Fast
“My name is Mr. Cann, Mrs. Gregg——”
“I don’t care what your name is, really.”
“Aren’t you being somewhat high-handed, Mrs. Gregg?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t come to the door to interrupt you or to bother you. I have my housework to do.”
“Nevertheless, I think you had better look at our credentials, Mrs. Gregg. You see, ordinarily, it might be your prerogative not to talk to us or even to close the door in our faces. That has been known to happen. However, we have a search warrant for the premises and we also have a warrant for the arrest of your husband.”
“You have what?” Lola whispered.
“A warrant for the arrest of your husband, Mrs. Gregg.”
“No. No. You must be mistaken. My husband has done nothing.”
“That’s for the courts to decide, Mrs. Gregg. The indictment alleges a conspiracy under Section 10, Title 18, United States Code. We do not write laws or indictments, Mrs. Gregg; we simply carry out our instructions, and I have already explained what they are under the circumstances. Now will you look at our credentials and let us in?”
Lola nodded and looked at the open wallets they held out. She also looked at a search warrant without seeing it or remembering one word that was printed upon it. They came into the apartment, and she closed the door behind them. Patty came running, and she took the child up in her arms. “Who are they, Mummy?” “They are just some men,” she said. They were already prowling through the little apartment, from room to room. There was not much for them to see, two small bedrooms, one hers and Gregg’s and the other for the children, the living-room, the kitchen and the little dining space in the alcove off it. They seemed to fill it and make her acutely conscious of how small it was. There were three closets, and they opened each and poked around. They went into the bathroom. It all took only two or three minutes. They stopped at the bookshelf which Gregg had built with such love and care and which covered one whole wall of the living-room and contained not only books gathered after they were married, but the most precious books that lay like a thread through Lola’s whole life, a bound volume of her St. Nicholas Magazines, some Pollyana books and The Secret Garden, Seventeen by Booth Tarkington, and Jo’s Boys and Little Women and Tanglewood Tales and many others—all of which they observed expertly, critically, knowingly.
Then they turned and looked at her.
“I can’t talk in front of her,” Lola said.
“Let the child play in the next room. Mr. Kelley here will play with her, if you wish him to.” Lola was not too agitated to notice that he said child, not kid. He had no Hollywood mannerisms of toughness; he was pursuing another legend. Trust your child to Mr. Kelley, and she would be as safe with him as with her mother. Safer. Were they not the protector of children, called when there was no one else to turn to, called at the darkest moment? Did not kidnappers and dope peddlers quaver at their name?
“Patty can play by herself,” Lola said quietly, telling herself, this is a matter of control, and it’s important not to upset Patty. It’s going to be very hard for you over the next few hours, but it can be harder for Patty and Roger. You have to make it easier for them. You don’t get excited. You force yourself to realize that this—even this is a matter of course. Even death is a matter of course, and this is easier than death. Yet even while she thought in this vein, she was astonished at her own thoughts and her composure.
She took Patty into the bedroom and said to her, “Play here for a little while, won’t you, darling?” The little girl looked at her gravely and said, “I love you, Mummy.” And Lola wondered, What do little girls know?
Then she went back into the living-room, where they were still standing. The man named Kelley said:
“You may not like us, Mrs. Gregg, but we’re only doing our job.”
“I don’t care about your job,” Lola told them quietly. “It’s your job and you picked it. Don’t whimper to me about your job and your duty.”
“That’s no way to talk, Mrs. Gregg.”
“It’s the way I feel.”
“May we sit down?” Mr. Cann asked.
“If you want to, you can. I won’t ask you to. You’re not here as my guests.”
They sat down side by side on the couch, each laying his hat alongside of him. They kept their coats on. Mr. Cann opened his portfolio, took out a pad, and removed a ball-point pen from his vest pocket. It was one of those pens with a retractable point, and he shot the point and regarded it for a moment, as with new curiosity. Then he asked, with the same unruffled politeness:
“Would you like to make a statement, Mrs. Gregg?”
“No.”
“No. Of course not.”
“I also know that I don’t have to answer any questions.”
“Yes, I suppose you would know that. Not unless you want to. However, we would like to ask you some questions. Do you know where your husband is?”
Lola looked at him silently, her heart pounding wildly, trying to understand what he was driving at. They had a warrant for Gregg’s arrest, therefore they had come to arrest him. Had they come here to arrest him? That was foolish. They knew he was not here. But why had they searched the place? Was that routine? But if they came here and searched the place, then they had not arrested him. But why? If they had a reputation for nothing else, they had one for thoroughness. Surely they knew where Gregg worked, when he went to work, when he returned from work. If for some reason they wanted Gregg, wanted him enough to issue a warrant for his arrest, then it was not a snap judgment on their part. From everything she had heard, everything she had read, they did not do things that way. They did things quite differently.
As if in answer to her unspoken question, Mr. Cann said, “We know where he works, Mrs. Gregg—at Stackney Bearing, 632 West 21st Street. He is employed as a machinist. We know that. We want to know whether you know where he is now?”
“He isn’t there?” Lola asked slowly.
“No, he is not, Mrs. Gregg. Please understand—we have no secrets. We are not trying to trap you. I will be happy to tell you exactly where we stand, and then perhaps you will know better where you stand. The warrant for Roger Gregg’s arrest was prepared in Washington, and it was to be delivered here. It was to arrive in New York at six A.M. Unfortunately, a flight was cancelled, and the warrant was delayed for about thirty minutes. These things happen even when you are very efficient. Two men were assigned to be here this morning and to pick up Gregg when he left the house. We knew that he leaves between six-forty-five and six-fifty each morning. Since they could not receive the warrant in time, they were to stay with him until he reached Stackney Bearing. Meanwhile, the warrant would be brought there and he would be arrested there. Now these two men picked him up this morning at six-fifty, as he left this apartment house. They followed him on the route he usually takes to the subway. They even knew that he would stop off at an all-night lunchroom for coffee. They waited outside for him. They waited for fifteen minutes, and then they went in. The proprietor told them that Gregg was in the washroom. They went in there. The window was open and Roger Gregg had gone. Just as simple and stale and trite as that, Mrs. Gregg. But you see, we suspect that he knew this before he left the house. And if he knew it, it is very likely that you knew it. That is why we are here, and that is why we are asking you these questions.”
Lola’s first thoughts were unreasoned, emotional, and as wild as birds on a high wind. “He is free!” she was crying to herself. “Free—free—free I They don’t have him! They don’t have Gregg! They never will! Never! They don’t know Gregg! Never! He’s free!”
Again, Mr. Cann anticipated her. “You are under no obligations to answer questions, Mrs. Gregg. But think it through before you burn any bridges behind you or your husband, to speak figuratively. Ask yourself some questions before you answer any of ours. For the moment, your husband is free, but consider what that freedom is worth. Think of an animal driven, hunted. Think of the fear and terro
r in which a hunted man lives. Perhaps you have not listened to the radio today, but already millions have heard that Roger Gregg fled from us. Where will he go? Where will he turn? Where will he hide? Consider it well, Mrs. Gregg—not in Hollywood terms, not in terms of the silly books we read, not in terms of young and foolish romantics, but in mature terms that square up with the facts of life. Have you ever heard the word outlaw, Mrs. Gregg? Think about it for a moment, because it is a word we take too glibly. Out-law—out of the law, out of the grip of the cement that binds human society together. You walk down the street with your head turned. When you stop in front of a shop window, it is only to see who is behind you. Every policeman is a figure of danger, every clerk in every cheap hotel a potential informer. For the outlaw no warmth of family and friend, no shield against the cold wind, no dinner-table to sit down to at night. Consider the company such a man will keep, Mrs. Gregg, and consider what will happen to his body and mind as time goes on. Sooner or later, we will find him. The United States of America is not large enough to hide a man, as strange as that may sound, Mrs. Gregg. Other men have tried; few have succeeded, most have failed. He was wearing a leather jacket, wasn’t he? And how much money did he have, ten dollars, twenty, a hundred? You are poor people, Mrs. Gregg; we know that, and here alone in this room with you, I can say that we know a great deal about you. Consider what I have said to you, Mrs. Gregg. This is not a light matter. This is a very grave matter indeed. So I ask you again, Mrs. Gregg, do you know where your husband is?”
It went into her heart like a cold needle of ice; for Mr. Cann was not a fool, and if he spoke at length, he spoke to a point, and his point was well taken. He poured cold water on Lola’s momentary exultation, and he quenched it the way a fire is quenched. He took her unreasoned response and latched it securely to reason. He pressed her emotions back into her heart and squeezed her heart until it ached. He demolished her with power, with assurance, with knowledge, and if not in so many words, he nevertheless told her, You, Mrs. Gregg, are nothing at all. Something you might have been, for we are some sort of kin in blood and background, but you chose otherwise. You are still alone, and you will always be alone; but I am only the out-thrust hand, no, the finger, no, even the fingernail of a force whose power you cannot even comprehend. All your resistance is childish and futile.
And to Mr. Kelley, who was thinking somewhat the same, if in simpler terms than Mr. Cann, she did seem very much like a child as she stood there, her brown eyes wide and sorrowful, her face drawn tight with all her inward strain and stress, her chest rising and falling. She had to struggle for words, for a minimum of composure, for the power to speak calmly as she said:
“I have made up my mind that I will answer no questions. Nothing you can say or do will change that. You have said what you came here to say. Will you please go away now?”
“I wish that weren’t your answer, Mrs. Gregg. There are many ways I might appeal to you. I might appeal in terms of our country, and of a way of life that is common to both of us. I might appeal in terms of patriotism and a merciless and wicked enemy. I might suggest that your loyalty to your husband is ill-placed, and that there are higher and better loyalties. I might——”
“Get out of here,” Lola whispered. “You are a filthy little man. Get out of here.”
“If that is all you have to say, Mrs. Gregg?”
“All I have to say—all.”
He closed his portfolio meticulously, and just as precisely and unhurriedly, he reached into his breastpocket, extracted a billfold, opened it, and produced a card. “My card—my telephone number is on it, if you should desire to get in touch with me, Mrs. Gregg.”
Lola did not move. Mr. Cann laid the card on the end table next to the couch, picked up his hat, and rose. Mr. Kelley copied the set of motions, and Mr. Cann said, in a polite, business-like tone of voice:
“I am sorry we could not see eye to eye in these matters, Mrs. Gregg.”
Lola followed them to the door and closed it behind them, feeling immediately such a wave of weakness that she could not move, but remained there at the door, leaning against it. After a while, she was able to go back into the living-room, where she remained for a few minutes, staring blankly in front of her. Then she began to cry, fighting all the while against it, calling upon every effort of her will to halt the tears. So powerless was she to do so that it seemed to her for a moment that another person was crying, not herself, and she felt a strange, detached curiosity as to the cause of the tears; and with that feeling, she realized that she was on the verge of hysteria. It was fortunate for Lola that Patty chose that moment to come in and ask her why she was crying.
“I hurt my finger,” Lola answered.
“Is it a bad hurt? Let me kiss it for you.”
Lola held out her finger, and Patty kissed it, and then Lola picked Patty up and cradled the child in her arms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LAWYER
THE lawyer’s name was Sam Feldberger. He had a face like a cherub. His eyes were blue, his hair yellow and curly, and his skin was pink and soft, and the passing years seemed to change him not one bit. She met him first shortly after the end of the year, when she and Gregg had first moved to New York, when she heard him speak one evening at a neighbourhood Labour Party meeting. The contrast between his appearance, and the crisp, forceful presentation he made fascinated her. His grasp and use of facts was uncanny, and he used them rapidly, simply and directly. She and Gregg had known very few people in New York then, and Feldberger struck Lola as someone she would like to know.
Gregg was at home with the baby, and when she returned, he wanted to know whether this meeting had bored her as much as most of those she went to. “Not at all,” she replied. “It didn’t bore me. They had someone worth listening to, a lawyer named Feldberger.”
“I know Feldberger,” Gregg said.
“But you don’t like him.”
“I got nothing against him. Maybe I don’t like lawyers or maybe I don’t like people who look like him. I don’t know him that well.” ‘
“You will,” Lola smiled. “I invited him and his wife to dinner next week.”
A good deal came out then. Maybe it was Gregg’s weakness, as Lola often thought, that no one ever commanded his respect. You had to win it, and the conditions he laid down were not easy. People like himself, people who worked with their hands, who got the little they had through their own hard work and need, who had been hungry as often as not and took their small solace of a few beers in a local tavern—such people he warmed to quickly, demanded not too much, but still asked for proof. The proof was more easily forthcoming than with anyone like Feldberger; or with Lola, for that matter, who had never understood what proof she had given him. But that night they talked of one thing and another, and a little about the war, which was still so close. Feldberger had been an officer, and was apologetic about it, and Gregg had said, the hell with that, and there was nothing to be ashamed of in being an officer. Gregg never was, but Feldberger said that if you earned it, well it was one thing, but he was a paratrooper in the invasion of France, and the good ones and the brave ones were killed, and those who had a talent for taking cover came out with the honour, the glory—for what it was worth—and the field commissions, one of which was Feldberger’s. They talked more, and Gregg began to accept him, though grudgingly at first. It took years for that to turn into real affection, but Feldberger was undismayed, and he liked Gregg, and counted an hour with Gregg as among the best that life had to offer. That was a quality in many men who knew Gregg that Lola found hard to understand; when he went out of his way to win the regard of people, he was strangely charming and attractive, but often enough, he withdrew into himself, surly and ill-humoured—and curiously enough, no one ever resented this. It was the whole pattern of Gregg that they valued.
So on this day, Lola was not too surprised when, about fifteen minutes after Mr. Cann and Mr. Kelley left, her doorbell rang, and the door opened on Sam Feldb
erger. Those were long, stricken minutes. All motion in the world stopped, and left her in the kind of desperate and terrifying loneliness she had never experienced before. She never moved in those fifteen minutes, but sat with Patty cradled in her arms and waited, knowing full well that she waited for nothing and to no purpose. The reaction she experienced then would not be repeated, no matter what happened. It was a freezing of function; she simply ceased to be, to think, to know, to consider, to plan, to hope; it was as if some monstrously large and bottomless black hole had opened to consume her, and she fell with no sensation of falling. The crowded, necessary and familiar tightness of her internal organs relaxed, opened, disappeared, and a yawning emptiness was within her. She knew the utter, empty despair that she had experienced a few hours after she gave birth for the first time, but now there was no possible future in which the emptiness would disappear, and that way she sat, entranced and lost until the doorbell rang and brought her back to reality and necessity. And when Feldberger put his arms around her, she just swayed a little and whispered, “Sam, we’re in a mess.”
Patty was glad to see him. He had brought her a doll and a wagon full of building blocks and a set of crayons and a colouring book, and reality and the world returned as Lola realized, He thought of that and stopped for that. He started Patty on projects and Lola decided to make coffee. That was back to her mother, and she reflected that her mother’s solutions were good solutions. When nothing else could be done, you made coffee and it helped. When a house burned down, you made coffee. When they carried into Doc Fremont’s office a man close to death from drowning, and those who carried him were cold and soaking wet, you put up coffee. It helped.
Feldberger played with Patty for a while, and then he went into the kitchen where Lola was and commented on how good the coffee smelled. “I had no breakfast,” he said. “This was a morning puff mornings. Yes, this was a morning—a daisy of a morning. I knew about Gregg since eight o’clock, but I didn’t want to telephone you. I wanted to come myself, and I couldn’t get away until now. Too much was happening.”